Design, Fabrication, and Performance Evaluation of a Photocatalytic Reactor for Degradation of Crystal Violet Dye in Aqueous Solution

Author : Rosales, Mac Josaph Bernadas
Major Adviser : Gatdula, Kristel M.
Committee Members : Dizon, Lisa Stephanie H.; Arocena, Rhebner E.
Year : 2020
Month : July
Type : Thesis
Degree: BS
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Abstract

One effective solution against textile dyes in wastewater was found to be the utilization of photocatalysis by subjecting it in a UV-activated photocatalyst. This study focused on the design and fabrication of an economically-viable stainless steel reactor and tested for the degradation of crystal violet (CV) dye in simulated wastewater using TiO₂. Five iterations of experimental runs were made with the following parameters: the photoreactor used 15 W of UV lamp and 500 mg TiO₂ photocatalyst against a 2 ppm CV dye solution for a reaction time of 80 minutes. Productivity calculations show that the space-time yield ranges between 6.0852 and 6.5011 m³ pollutant per m³ reactor volume per day, while the photocatalytic space-time yield ranges between 0.8114 and 0.8668 m³ pollutant per m³ reactor volume per kW per day. The removal rate ranges between 2.6324 and 3.0708 mg CV dye per g TiO₂ per hour. The photocatalysis was known to be in a pseudo-first reaction order and the degradation achieved ranges between 52.174% and 46.136% with apparent reaction rate of 8.461 x 10⁻³ per min. The study concludes that purely depending on photocatalysis for wastewater is unreliable yet and recommends that additional processes must be added in the treatment procedure.


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